the
volume xlv, issue 4 friday, 9/13/2013
Observer Spartans 2-0 pursue pg. 19
After 37-16 victory versus Marietta, Spartans head to Oberlin. Sarah Whelan /The Observer
Senator touts innovation at CWRU Law Last Monday, Sept. 9, Senator Sherrod Brown visited the Case Western Reserve University Law School to share some ideals and answer students’ questions on any of today’s current issues. He started the talk by sharing a favorite quote and several anecdotes with the audience. The quote, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, was about the constant and consistent battle between the innovators and the conservators. This idea proved to be the theme of Brown’s personal mission and his message for the assembled audience. The first story he told was of a dinner in Cincinnati where he was introduced to a table of African-American and Latina women who had just signed a union contract. When
he asked one of them, a fifty-year old woman, what it was like to have a union, she replied, “It’s the first week of paid vacation I’ve ever had.” This took Brown into a discussion of the bias toward privilege that comes from the government. He again mentioned the conservators and innovators, indicating that conservators have a main goal of protecting wealth. Brown then compared them to the innovators, who he said had a different approach. The innovators (whom he openly and repeatedly commended and emphasized) would work over short periods, in bursts of innovative energy. The examples of worker’s safety acts, civil rights, safe air and water and the inventions of Medicare, Social Security and a minimum wage were used to show how the public had pushed the government forward.
The second anecdote Brown shared was of another Ohio politician, the recently deceased John Gilligan. When Brown was running in his first election he met Gilligan, who said to a colleague (about Brown), “I’ll campaign for or against him, whichever helps him more.” This brought a laugh to the audience as Brown explained that Gilligan was a controversial figure— controversial for being gutsy. When Ohio was in the bottom five states in the country for mental health care, it was Gilligan who brought about the institution of a state income tax. This brought Brown again to praise for activism in America. In one of his many references to history, Brown spoke of the burst of energy from 1964 through 1966, which brought about Medicaid, emphasis on higher education and the Wilderness Act (to name a few). He told the group that it is im-
portant to fight the organizations that want to take rights away, such as women’s rights, collective bargaining, the right to work and voting rights. He made the claim that voting fraud in this country is insignificant, and the supposed fight against it was an effort by some (namely the conservators) to take voting rights away. When the floor was opened to questions, the first was on if Obamacare will be funded. Brown stated that there are certain parts of it that cannot not be funded. It is a law; Congress passed it and the president signed it. The problem, he continued, is that a lot of people don’t want to recognize that law, and there are thing they can do to block it. He gave the example of politicians, welldressed and generally well-off, taking their
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pg. 3 Researcher earns third NIH grant
pg. 11 Italian culture: More than food
pg. 13 Greek study rooms: Unfair?
pg. 20 Men’s soccer first victory
Talia Gragg Contributing Reporter
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